Red and Black Hockey

Entries with the tag: hershey bears

On Sunday evening, the Charlotte Checkers defeated the defending Calder Cup champion Hershey Bears 2-1 in overtime of game six of their first round matchup. Charlotte has won the series 4-2 and will face the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Baby Penguins in the second round. Games one and two will be in Scranton on Thursday and Saturday nights, respectively.

Just 36 seconds into the game, Brett Sutter scored his second goal in as many games to give the Checkers the early lead. Zac Dalpe and Zach Boychuk assisted on the goal, which stood as the game’s only goal for more than 53 minutes. Boychuk has tallied at least one point in every playoff game this season. He’s the only player in the East and one of only two players in the entire AHL to have a six-game points streak.

On Tuesday night, the Hershey Bears defeated the Charlotte Checkers 3-2. On Wednesday night, the Checkers returned the favor, winning game four by the same score. The series is tied 2-2 with one more game to be played in Charlotte on Friday night. Games six and (if necessary) seven will be in Hershey.

Charlotte got goals from Nick Dodge and Zach Boychuk on Tuesday while Zac Dalpe was held off the scoresheet completely. On Wednesday, Charlotte got goals from Dodge, Nicolas Blanchard and Oskar Osala. Jon Matsumoto had two helpers while Boychuk, Dalpe, Jacob Micflikier and Drayson Bowman each had one assist. Mike Murphy made 35 saves to pick up the win, which was his first career Calder Cup playoff victory.

It’s now a best-of-three series and Hershey has a decided home ice advantage. Charlotte can make things hard for them with another win on Friday.

Defenseman Justin Faulk, who just helped UMD win the NCAA championship, was signed last week and immediately reported to Charlotte. He made his professional debut tonight with no points or penalties and a +/- of zero. The guys on the Checkers radio broadcast said that he looked “like he belonged”.

On Sunday night, the Charlotte Checkers completed a two game home set with the defending Calder Cup champion Hershey Bears. After a frustrating 2-1 shootout loss on Friday, Charlotte came out with guns blazing, scored goals in bursts, and even got their hands dirty a few times. The end result was a convincing 5-3 win, which allowed the Checkers to leapfrog the Bears in the standings.

Charlotte got a lot of production from the heavy lifters, as the top line of Zach Boychuk / Zac Dalpe / Jacob Micflikier accounted for three goals and seven assists. Micflikier had two goals and an assist; Dalpe had a goal and two assists; Boychuk had four assists. They swept the three stars of the game. The Checkers also got goals from Matt Pistilli and defenseman Bryan Rodney.

The Bears got one goal from Sheldon Souray, who is getting paid $5.5 million after the Edmonton Oilers kicked him out of training camp and then loaned him to the Capitals organization. For the record, it was a five-on-three goal. They also got a shorthanded goal by Jay Beagle and a four-on-four goal from Lawrence Nycholat.

On Tuesday night, the Albany River Rats suffered a heartbreaking 6-5 overtime loss to the Hershey Bears. Twice in the game, they led by two goals and they led by one with less than five minutes to play, but the Bears did as they have done for the entire series and they answered the bell every single time. At 16:08 of the overtime period, Jay Beagle beat Justin Peters with a rebound chance and the Rats are down three games to none.

They always say in any sport that a playoff series isn’t really a series until someone wins a road game. Well, it’s officially a series. Unfortunately, it may as well be officially over.

On Thursday night, the Rats will try to stave off elimination with what might be the final game in the Carolina Hurricanes portion of the Albany River Rats history.

On Sunday afternoon, the Albany River Rats got themselves into trouble on the ice, and in the end they are in a two game hole in the best-of-seven series. The final score in Sunday’s game was 6-3, but in fairness it was much closer than that.

In a carbon copy of Saturday’s game, the Rats spent the entire third period in the box. There might be some speculation that the officials tilted the ice, but the fact of the matter is that the Rats have played undisciplined. They took four consecutive penalties in the third period on Saturday, then four consecutive in Sunday’s game two. Hershey, on the other hand, committed no third period penalties on Saturday. The only third period penalties against them on Sunday were fighting majors to match those of the Rats.

The Rats started the third period today with a shorthanded goal by Nick Dodge to take a 3-2 lead, but it all went downhill from there. The parade to the penalty box led to three straight power play goals and finally an empty-net goal in the dying seconds. This was followed by a lot of extracurricular activity that did nothing other than risk injuries and/or suspensions to Rats players. Naturally, Tim Conboy was involved in some of the rough stuff.

In the East Division finals, the Hershey Bears have taken a one games to none lead of the best of seven series. Jerome Samson tallied two goals in the losing effort, as the Rats fell 4-3 in overtime.

Winger Jiri Tlusty suffered a “lower body injury” in the first period and did not return. With game two less than 19 hours away, I guess they’ll have to use one of the “in residence” players or one of the guys who was just recalled from the Florida Everblades of the ECHL.

The theme of the night was penalty trouble. The Rats dug a lot of holes for themselves, amassing 33 minutes of penalties. They were already a man down, and they spent the better part of the third period on the penalty kill. They managed to kill six of the seven penalties, but the killers were spending too much time on the ice and the forwards were already double shifting after losing Tlusty.

Justin Peters made 44 saves in the loss. Due to the back-to-back situation with the short turnaround, I suspect that we’ll see Justin Pogge in nets for the Rats on Sunday.

In AHL Calder Cup playoff action, the Albany River Rats and the defending Cup champ Hershey Bears (Capitals) are set to begin their East division finals series. Because the AHL playoffs aren’t re-seeded between rounds and because they don’t wait for all first round series to conclude, this series might be three games deep while one first round series is still going. I don’t really like that set-up. It could potentially lead to a situation where some team is sitting around for two weeks or more waiting for an opponent.

Anyway, this series will begin with a back-to-back in Hershey on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. In regular season action, the Rats were 2-6 against the Bears, and they lost all four games played in Hershey. Interestingly, the Rats were also 2-6 in the regular season against the Baby Pens, losing all four games played in Wilkes-Barre. That, obviously, had no bearing on the playoff series that the Rats won in straight games.

Friday night, the Hershey Bears gave the Albany River Rats an 8-2 beatdown. The scoreboard was ugly, and so was the scoresheet. There were a total of five fights in the game, including four separate fights in the third period. The teams combined for 114 penalty minutes in the third period alone. There should be suspensions to follow, as each team had two players get game misconduct penalties in the melee. The Rats had two additional players pick up misconduct penalties including one for “abuse of officials”.